한병더!

"One more bottle!"

Well don't we sound like alcoholics? I'll get back to this line later ;).

So I've been really bad at taking pictures during the week...mainly because I don't want to carry my large camera bag and schoolbag, which would be super bulky...but then if we do stuff after class I miss the opportunity to take fun pictures with my class! Alas, I'll eventually bring my camera. I just wish I had a simple point and shoot as well :(.

This week was a lot of hanging out with my class friends--yay for bonding! I don't know why, but for some reason, girls outnumber guys by so much when it comes to interest in foreign language learning. I wonder if there's a reason for that--are girls' brains more wired for language? I also notice that especially from Japan, the vast majority are girls--and I think that has to do with a lot of Japanese women being housewives, so I guess if their husbands are out at work in Korea, they have lots of time to spend so they might as well take Korean classes? Maybe? Just a theory. That combined with the fact that my class has only four guys (myself, 아키히로 Akihiro, 장명 Zhang Ming, and 향양 Xiang Yang) means that I often am the only guy in a group of many girls, because Akihiro is much older than most of us and Zhang Ming and Xiang Yang seem to just like to go home right after class. It's a bit awkward, but I'll live XD.

There's this girl in my class 설청 Xue Qing who completely tricked me when we first met lol. I often take people's words at face value when I first meet them, especially if they just seem like a sweet, innocent girl, but after getting to know her I should have realized she was lying to me in the first place...she told me she was born in '83 (the normal way of telling your age in Korea) and despite her looking really young, I just said okay and went ahead with calling her 누나 nuna (older sister in Korean for a guy). This Thursday, when I was hanging out with 렝 Leng and 카나 Kana, they mentioned something about her being a '91 and I was like "wait, wait, wasn't she born in '83?" and they cracked up. Haha, fail on my part -.-! So finally, I'm not the youngest one in my Sogang class (not that I've been at Sogang for many semesters, but we Yale students tend to be the youngest ones in the class).

Okay, just for ease, I'm going to just provide a list here of the people in my class:
Naoko 나오코 (Japan)
Kana 카나 (Japan)
Yukiko 유키코 (Japan)
Yuki 유키 (Japan)
Zhang Ming 장명 (China)
Xiang Yang 향양 (China)
Meng Ju 명주 (Taiwan)
Anastasiya 아나쓰타샤 (Russia)
Leng 렝 (Thailand)
Xue Qing 설청 (China)
Akihiro 아키히로 (Japan)
Muriel 뮈리엘 (Belgium)
Hiroko 히로코 (Japan)
Keiko 케이코 (Japan)
Bai Hua 백화 (China)

Phew, what a big class.

On Friday, we went to this yummy 칼국수 kalguksu (a type of noodle) place that Heeseung (a Light Fellow from the summer) recommended to me and had gone to with Meng Ju. Sadly, I didn't have a camera :(, but hopefully next time--or I'll upload some of Meng Ju's pictures later. There were 9 of us (and I was the only guy of course) but we were lucky because there was no line (apparently there usually is). Mm mm, definitely gotta go there again!

Friday night was spent hanging out with Dong Hwa, who I had met through Bob when we went to Lotte World, Margaret, and Yuna, as well as some of their other friends. After eating, we went to watch this English play that was written by a Korean at Sogang--a very interesting experience. Some of the Korean-accented English was hard for me to understand, and although I didn't enjoy the first play that much (which was about five people riding a train and participating in this lottery that leads them to fight with each other) but the second one (about an interview to get into an imaginary largest corporation in Korea) I thought was extremely well-acted and that the actors' English was much more comprehensible. Very fun experience :).
Unfortunately I only got a picture of the first one (my camera does a pretty loud click so I was worried it would distract people).

Afterward we went to a 노래방--seriously, I can't believe I'd gone a month in Korea without having gone karaokeing! Well, finally, I did.
Margaret and 기철 Ki CheolKi Cheol and Mirabel 정연Mirabel and Dong Hwa

Oh and Mirabel is an AMAZING singer. Like WOW I wish I had a recording or video. Apparently she's aspiring to be in musicals and wants to go to the US to study. I was told by the others that her voice was amazing and even then I was really blown back when I heard her sing Korean songs just like the Korean singers and then proceed to sound like Whitney Houston, Kelly Clarkson, etc. Just, WOW.

And now moving on to Saturday, my cousin Sylvia visited me! :D She and her friend Karen are touring Asia and since they were dropping by Korea we decided to meet up. I took them to my oh so favorite sundubu place and we wandered around Sinchon afterwards, wondering why so many random college students were running around in red or blue and yelling, singing songs, parading throughout Sinchon's narrow streets.
Well, we found our answer when Sneha's Yonsei mentor Jaeha recognized me and convinced my cousin, her friend, and me to join him and the rest of the students!
Karen, my cousin Sylvia, and Jaeha.

What an experience for my cousin and her friend to have while just touring Asia haha. Apparently it was the last day of the Yonsei-Korea University games (Yonsei being blue, Korea red) so it's a tradition for them to run through the streets and sing songs and...create trains (which are very much like conga lines) and "beg for food" (consisting of standing in front of restaurants as a large group and yelling set phrases--which I wish I could understand...but it's often hard to understand screaming in unison...). I did get 사장님! (Manager of a business, like a restaurant) and after being given food or more often, beer or soju, 한병더! hence the title of this entry.
So of course, there was drunken debauchery and general tomfoolery haha. After the festivities, Sylvia, Karen, and I met up with Sneha and we went to a (really nice o_o!) cafe to hang out.
The decor was very fancy looking, almost like a Victorian era place (maybe expensive decor would explain why coffee is so expensive in Korea...). Going to the cafe also made me feel like I was hitting another plateau in language learning >.<. When we entered the cafe, I did not have a clue at all what our waiter said, and after asking him to repeat it and not knowing what he said, of course, I just took the all-purpose (well, not really) answer "네" yes. So we were seated on the second floor, and he asked us if we wanted a 제떨이 (ashtray, a word I always remember because it sounds like Jet Li) and looked super confused when I said no. Eventually, we realized he was probably asking us if we wanted to sit in the smoking section. Oh language fails. Yesterday, which was Sunday, I met with my cousin and Karen once more and took them to this yummy Korean barbecue buffet (mind you, despite getting food poisoning last time, I still decided to come here again haha--but mostly because it was probably my fault for not grilling the food enough). Mm mmmmmm. It's funny how we always find the fat that melts off and the oil that evaporates into the air so gross...yet the food so good T_T.
And because Korean cafes are irresistible we went to Caffe Pascucci, a Korean chain, afterwards. Of course, Koreans always make cute little images like this on their coffee ^^. I was sad when I didn't have my camera at this other cafe I went to where they drew a bear face on the coffee!
And more examples of the luxuriousness of cafes.
Bye Sylvia and Karen! See you back in the States :).
Lastly, some more fun Korean stuff. The first picture is an Indian restaurant, with which there are many wrong things...1) Aladdin is misspelled 2) The logo is DEFINITELY exactly the same as Disney's Aladdin and 3) Aladdin is DEFINITELY not Indian...hahahaha. The second picture...well, I don't even need to explain.

And on an unrelated note--RIP to Annie Le :(. Very shocking news to hear, especially from abroad...